Second Short Quiz - Three Cups of Tea

[johnkarls]

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On Sat July 18, NY Times OpEd writer Thomas Friedman wrote an article about his reactions after attending a few days earlier the opening of yet another school in the mountains straddling the Afghanistan/Pakistan border by our author Greg Mortenson. The article is posted in this section of the bulletin board.

1. What is Thomas Friedman's basic attitude toward the war in Afghanistan?

2. Is his basic attitude appreciably different from a recent editorial in the Los Angeles Times that is also posted on our bulletin board?

3. Or, indeed, from our own “six degrees of separation” campaign following our April 8th meeting -- for each of us to contact President Obama (and urge all of our friends and acquaintances to do so in an unending chain) in order to urge him to rely on human intelligence and infiltration, instead of surging to 70,000 American troops in Afghanistan?

4. What is Greg Mortenson's basic philosophy/policy regarding educating girls in the mountain home of Al Qaeda and The Taliban?

5. How many schools, primarily for girls, does Mortenson (per Friedman) claim have been bombed, burned or shut down by Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the last 19 months?

6. On the other hand, what has been the attitude of the Pakistani government to Mortenson's efforts?

7. Thomas Friedman notes that another attendee of the new-school opening was U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen - who is he?

8. What is the attitude of the U.S. military to Mortenson's book that we are reading?

9. Does Thomas Friedman say that the war in Afghanistan is justified because of the efforts of Mortenson?

10. In this regard, Friedman's OpEd article was re-printed in the Salt Lake Tribune on July 21 with the title (the Trib often re-prints OpEd pieces from the NY times but makes up its own title) - "School for girls shows U.S. must not leave Afghanistan now?"!!! The title of Friedman's OpEd article in the NY Times on July 18 had been - "Teacher, can we leave now? No."!!! Does the SLTrib title ending with a question mark imply that the SLTrib is as aghast at Friedman's logic as "yours truly"???

11. Why does Friedman see any relationship between the war in Afghanistan and Mortenson's efforts? After all, how many of Mortenson's schools are in Afghanistan where the war is raging and how many of them are in Pakistan where the only American military activity is constant aerial bombing? And how long was Mortenson building schools before 9/11 and the beginning of the war in Afghanistan? And will Mortenson's efforts be able to survive the looming defeat of the U.S. in Afghanistan?

12. Might Friedman be sacrificing logic and reason because his OpEd pieces are published so widely around the Muslim world and he is really preaching to his Muslim audience about Islam’s treatment of women (and so what if he has to look foolish to Americans in order to do so)?

13. Friedman claims that Mortenson has changed his own views on the war in Afghanistan - how have they changed? And do you believe that the views Friedman attributes to him are sincere, or merely that Mortenson feels compelled to avoid ruffling feathers?